By Steve Pick August 01, 2001

The best songs often have the least interesting origins. Craig Reid, one-half of the Scottish twin-brother band the Proclaimers, wrote their most successful song just to pass some time between gigs. "I think 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)' was one of those songs that was written in about 45 minutes," Reid explains in a phone interview. "I think we were gonna do a gig in Aberdeen, which is about 150 miles from Edinburgh. In those days, the road was even worse than it is now, so you'd set off a few hours before you did the gig. I was sitting in the house, just waiting to get picked up in the bus. It was about an hour before, and I was at the piano. I just came up with the chords, and I got the lyrics straight away. It was like falling off a log. Some songs, you have to really work at them, and that one was like... More >>>

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The Proclaimers are at their best when they write about deceptively trivial domestic subjects.